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Chapters → The walls of Camperdown Memorial Rest Park Ellen Burke

The walls of Camperdown Memorial Rest Park Ellen Burke

Camperdown Memorial Rest Park is a social hub of Newtown and Camperdown. The playground overflows with children after the three o’clock bell of Australia Street Primary. Dogs sprint across the park fetching balls or greeting new friends. Groups gather to celebrate birthdays, promotions, final exams, or just sunny Sundays. Couples meet for catch-ups or dates. The ever- growing team of delivery cyclists loiter, waiting for their next job. Bordering most of this are walls, and on these walls are layers of graffiti and street art.

Generally speaking, there are three distinct, but linked, types of street art and graffiti present here: complex graffiti pieces, illegal street art, and commissioned murals. These forms of street art and graffiti give the park its character, but they also reflect the changing tensions and complexities of the street art world. As illegal graffiti inspired by new styles from the US has evolved into legal and commissioned street art murals there have been positive effects, but also patterns of exclusion that reflect the wider gentrification of Newtown and Camperdown.

The history and evolution of street art and graffiti can be seen when looking at the walls of Camperdown Memorial Rest Park. It is important to know that graffiti came first, graffiti in the ‘wild’ style that you formerly could find in the corner of the park closest to the Courtyard pub on Lennox Street (Figure 1). Graffiti emerged from marginal communities of Philadelphia and New York in the 1970s. People didn’t know how to respond at first – there was even a piece in the New York Times describing graffiti as a new kind of ‘folk art’. But graffiti quickly became associated with dirtiness, vandalism and violence. It was criminalised by urban authorities in the cities where it originated, and then across the rest of the world. Despite efforts it was not eradicated, instead becoming an integral part of hip-hop culture.

Street art then emerged from graffiti. It is difficult to articulate the exact distinction between street art and graffiti: some people base it on legality of works, others on style or technique, yet others on intention. You can see examples of graffiti and street art like stencils, paste ups and images on the walls of Lennox street and on the church walls bordering the park (Figure 2). In the last twenty years street art has become popular and highly valued (think Banksy) in some places. From street art, mural art has become popular and common worldwide. On the fence of a house backing onto the Rest park there is a mural by OxKing, commissioned by the Inner West Council in 2017 (Figure 3). While murals and many forms of street art have become popular and valued, graffiti is still mostly an unwanted act. People are usually unhappy with tags on the walls of their houses but welcome murals. Whilst this is generally speaking a positive process for artists and communities, close examination of the impacts is needed. We will now turn to critically analyse the different effects of murals such as this one.

The mural (Figure 3) in the Rest park operates as both an artwork and a graffiti deterrent. OxKing was commissioned to paint it as part of the Inner West Council’s ‘Perfect Match’ program, an anti- graffiti initiative. The idea is that murals are commissioned for walls that are popular graffiti spots and the murals will deter graffiti.23 It works, mostly. And if not, the council paints the murals with an anti-graffiti coating that makes any unwanted additions easily removed. Furthermore, the OxKing mural here works as an especially successful graffiti-deterrent because OxKing himself is originally a graffiti artist. It is somewhat ironic to use murals to deter graffiti considering that they are historically linked, and even more so when graffiti artists work to deter graffiti. Just because it is ironic it is not necessarily a bad thing, but we do need to consider the long-term effects and beneficiaries of murals such as this one.

The mural also features on street art walking tours such one run by a group called Culture Scouts. Culture Scout tours receive ongoing financial benefit from people who take the tours, and they again contribute to tourism in the area. One of Culture Scout’s tour guides is Melinda Vassallo, who in 2019 published a photography book called Perfect Match, which details stories of the murals. The earnings from the book are returned to Vassallo and the Inner West Council. Hopefully you are starting to see that the commercial impacts of murals like this extend far beyond artists themselves. This is by no means a purely negative thing, as artists are definitely given opportunities and publicity, and economic growth of communities is positive. But it is not all good news.

The surrounding neighbourhood receives a kind of cultural credibility from murals, but this can work to make areas exclusive through gentrification. Newtown boasts colourful streets, which contribute to the “creative character” of the area. This is beneficial to local businesses and local housing prices – evident by the fact that the house on which this OxKing mural is painted sold for $2.65 million in 2017.24 But, this creative character can lead to gentrification. Gentrification is a process of exclusion that occurs when an area changes from one of lower working class to middle and upper-class, promoting “class-based displacement”.25Often, developers move in to take advantage of cheaper prices, and developments drive up rent and living prices. Prices then exclude less-affluent occupants from accessing opportunities, resources and housing, resulting in their displacement – not everyone can afford a $2.65 million home. Murals can be seen as contributing to gentrification, as they increase the “vibe” and desirability of an area. Indeed, in the last 20 years Newtown has changed from a working-class suburb to a middle-class one, and the presence of multiple murals reflects and exacerbates this gentrification.

Furthermore, murals themselves can be seen as gentrifying street art. Murals set parameters on what is valued, working to exclude and eradicate graffiti writers from the area. Street art walking tours exacerbate this process, imposing an “urban visual regime” through choosing what to include and value in tours.26 Whilst you may not see this as a bad thing (depending on whether or not you like graffiti) it is potentially restricting emerging artists, who could turn into mural artists like OxKing if given the opportunity. Exclusion by gentrification raises concerns of equity and accessibility, which extend to the street art and graffiti world.

Looking around the walls of Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, you can see that many other forms of graffiti and street art are painted alongside the OxKing mural. The wide range of people who use the park reflect the range of styles on its walls. Whilst parts of Newtown and Camperdown are gentrified, with prices that many find exclusive, the walls are not completely covered in murals just yet, although in the process of writing this and revisiting the park I discovered that the wild-style corner of graffiti (Figure 1) had been replaced by a mural (Figure 4). To end, I quote Banksy, a street artist whose satirical political commentary reflects concerns of gentrification: [27]

Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall – it’s wet.

24 Devine, Aiden (2017) Street art is driving up home values in edgy inner city suburbs, Daily Telegraph, 11 August, https://www.realestate.com.au/news/street-art-is-driving-up-home- values-in-edgy-inner-city-suburbs/
25 Lees, L, Slater, T & Wyly, E (2013) Gentrification, Taylor and Francis Group, New York, p. xxii.
26 Andron, S (2018) Selling streetness as experience: The role of street art tours in branding the creative city, The Sociological Re- view, 66 (5), p. 1053.
27 Banksy (2006) Wall & Piece, Century, The Random House, London.